


You Own A Lifetime Of Woes

by treasuredleisure



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Cuba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treasuredleisure/pseuds/treasuredleisure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Cuba, Magneto is left bewildered by the news he receives. </p><p>There is only one man he finds himself fleeing to for that <i>peace</i> he struggles to acquire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Own A Lifetime Of Woes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakmefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/gifts).



> Written for my lovely recipient for the Secret Mutant Exchange 2012. A huge thank you to the lovely mods who helped this newbie out.

 

He’s jolted awake by the beckoning of a mind - desperate, but brusque. Charles wets his dry lips enough to overcome their adhesion and blinks owlishly at the bleakness in his room. It does nothing to steer his mind to stability, as the aftershock of collision with a mind so urgent and so _fierce_ requires a great deal of clarity in his mind; his vision.

He stirs in his bed a little, hand lifting to massage the knots straining his neck at its nape. He’s grown accustomed to waking with pain wringing him sore, draining his unused energy and always so unevenly distributed along his body.

 

His bottom half remains numb.

 

Smoothing a hand over his thigh, he rather foolishly wishes he could wake them with the same ease as his hand, when its receptors freeze and numbness inhibits sensation. It takes a slight shake, flexing of absent-but-present muscles, then a nudge to his brain for his sensory receptors to begin their exploration of the outer world.

He sighs.

At times, it would seem that he could stick an entire needle through his calf, but not get even the slightest report of stimuli, not even a remote attempt for caution, action, stimulation - _nothing_.

 _Charles Francis Xavier_ , manipulator of minds, savant in the field of biological sciences - can’t control even the lower part of his body.

Then it strikes again, like a metaphysical presence determined to impede his reverie, and just as abruptly - it withdraws. If today is the day for self-deprecating and resentment of one’s own abilities - or lack thereof - then Charles wouldn’t be surprised. The summon is too sharp and far too quick, but too profound not to ignore.

He shifts in bed again. He tries to revisit its effect in his mind. The call had been delivered with urgent haste, and Charles has barely received the chance to register its root or cause. He extends his telepathy past his quarters and through the mansion; beams of his mind scanning over the occupants of the vast rooms. He skims across the familiar minds of his students, getting excerpts of diligence, terror, comfort and stress as he does so. Brains busy with disposing or embedding the information garnered through the day, dreams unfurling and pouring over their conscious. There’s not a single mind, whatsoever, yearning for Charles.

Nobody in the mansion, at least.

He persists. Hoisting himself up to sit, Charles finds his fingers reflexively curl to his temple. He searches for a presence that could be lingering in a kilometre radius, tires, and stops. Exhaling from fatigue, he locates the part of his mind that had momentarily tremored with shock from the aggressive plea for his attention. There are repercussions, however, of the _attack_ \- Charles decides. He dives into those ripples, until he’s almost literally diving-

Into a cold ocean, head first, plunging into cascades of water to revisit that esoteric source. Its anger, its obstinate determination, its fury from failure, as only an insufficient part of his - _his_ \- mind focuses on what it should: breathing.

Charles gasps and throws the covers off his body, gusts of air smacking into him like the tides of that ocean, but his legs aren’t kicking like they should be.

 

_Oh._

He plants his hands on either side of him before scooting over to the rails that frame his bed. He clutches the metal and uses the leverage to mobilise his pyjama-clad body onto the wheelchair.

Tucking into the chair and wincing at the cold is just the easy part. He settles and wheels over to where his dark green sweater is discarded. Once clothed, he can inhale the discernibly sharp and clinical odour of the anaesthetic gel for his lower back, from when he’d smothered it onto his hand and rubbed with agony until his arm strained from the angle.

The memory isn’t even half as dismaying as some that his other clothes carry. Like the grey jumper that’s now found the deepest corner of his cupboard to reside in. It unleashes a vicious flurry of images, all of which pass through Charles’s mind where they’re equally as woven as they are into the woolly fibres.

But then some things can’t be helped, can they? Like the decrescendo from mutual affection to carnal desire. Hesitant, demure smiles transpiring into quivering lips tugged under teeth. Names called purposefully outside, to the same names being moaned in shivering sobs of euphoria inside. A mirroring of postures over an innocuous game of chess, to complimentary positions of thighs bracketing hips, tongues relishing hot skin, backs arching into a curve that suddenly exposes _that_ part of his neck; yet to be tasted. 

 

It’s no surprise that by the time Charles has steered over to the back of the mansion, the first thing that slots itself into the front of his mind is just how many times they’ve made love with an ache in their heart.

That man - that _damned_ man is wired so deeply in his mind that Charles can’t help the plethora of emotions and memories that he corresponds to. At the end of the day, it’s a pathetic thing for a telepath to be doting over. It surely can’t take longer than a blink for Charles to sweep all associations into oblivion.

But he doesn’t. He won’t. Only arrogance could lead a man to deny what had once made them happy. It would take a whole new calibre of arrogance to pretend like that happiness had never even existed in the first place.

Whisks of air caress the pale skin of his body that’s bare in the chilled Autumn night. Gooseflesh rises across the sensitive stretch of skin; and he can’t blame the wind.

Not when he finds a lean figure looming over the balcony rails. Standing not very far from where they had been a year ago.

 

When Charles had asked Erik to move the satellite _back_ in place.

 

And during the process of aiding Erik’s mind set for the strenuous task, he had located a vivid montage of memories; comfortably comprising the brightest area of his experiences. Among the sunny moments, some of which he had skimmed past the time prior; he had found himself.

Images of his own blue eyes, his own pink mouth curved in an admired grin, and the warmth of his own aura - the rays of which had an evidently profound effect on Erik.

The taller man had sensed the unfolding of his own sweet guilt and had even feared it beforehand. He felt helpless; exposed. The more of his own self he was able to see, the more Erik’s face had flushed abashed shades of red.

Charles’s hearty laugh, the guttural enunciation of Erik’s name in a rapturous cry of pleasure, the sight of delicate ivory skin when Erik had placed his hungry, hot mouth over Charles’s throbbing-

“Stop!” he had urged, a hand springing out haphazardly between the two men. Charles had withdrawn with a palpitating heart practically knocking against his ribcage to be dealt with. Panting a little, he had ran a hand over his dark hair dismissively, as if he hadn’t just seen himself earnestly engraved inside the mind of a man who could kill him with just the watch around his wrist.  

But he had still whispered, in a hesitant tremor, “S-sorry.”

It was necessary, and due, but the heaving of Erik’s chest told him it was insufficient.

So instead, the futility of his apology was made up by advancing towards the flustered German and placing his own mouth on his. Erik had writhed slightly, but not out of reluctance - out of defeat. When he had stopped squirming, Charles had welcomed the inviting opportunity to press his lips against the other’s with more force and passion. Erik’s incoherent mind was still echoing _deceit - idiot - how dare he-oh, verdammt, his lips-_

And Charles had smirked into the charged kiss despite himself. Erik’s white-knuckled grip on the balcony rails had softened, before faltering completely when Charles had stepped closer to press their broad chests together. His mouth had left Erik’s for a small while, wherein their eyes locked and Erik’s arms resorted to wrapping intimately around Charles’s waist. Erik’s gaze flitted downward to his mouth. Knowingly, Charles had protruded his tongue to swipe it across his swollen bottom lip. The gesture had intensified everything from its colour, to the colour on Erik’s cheeks, to the response it had elicited from Erik.

A helpless gasp had followed a desperate meeting of mouths; both men urging for more of the other. Charles had arched into the locking arms around him when Erik had expertly dived his tongue past the barricade of the sealed, moistened lips he had overtly been thinking about. The younger mutant’s hands had clasped onto the sides of his face for closer manipulation and the feel of divulging cheekbones he himself probably thought about a lot. Charles’s pursuit of Erik’s mouth had earned him a saccharine taste on his tongue on drawing back, as well as a disapproving whine he had heard many times before.

Insatiable as ever, Erik had used the leverage of his vice-like grasp on the telepath to pull their mouths into reunion, like it was the answer to all of his questions - essential for his satisfaction, essential for his contentment, essential for his soul to carry him into tomorrow. A tomorrow with him, _Charles_. 

 

Then there’s now. There’s the drape of a dark cape. The glossy shine of a blood red helmet. The shadow of a man with unhinging motives. 

What was once the backdrop for the wanton display of two friends utterly besotted with each other, is now casted out by the bleakness of the night. The night in which two men reunite with an unfinished affair hanging over them like a monumental grey cloud of worry and woes. The suspense of inexplicable desire, an ineffable connection, an indescribable influx of emotions - all drenched with sorrow, disdain, and loneliness.   

He was once infatuated with the man standing a metre from him. Once, he was the man whose scent greeted him in the morning sunrise. He was once the man who went out of his way to please his lover. He was once that driven man who, despite of what his definitive mission was, loved openly and disingenuously. Became vulnerable, and not so he could harness a power - but so that Charles could take the reigns and coincidentally, seize his heartstrings. Until Erik's heart had made a brief appearance on the pleat of his sleeve.

Charles finds himself in the past again when Erik's feet shuffle. He's been staring at the telepath, eyes roaming undoubtedly over the crippled form of his old friend. 

The effort it takes to get Charles back into the here and now lands him straight into contemplation over the distinct structure that sits bordering his face.

Now Charles could never advance forward and place his hands on his cheeks, and for a number of reasons.

Still, the damned thing becomes the subject of Charles's attention, and he can't refrain from blurting,

"Do you sleep with that bloody thing on?"

His enquiry elicits a soft chuckle from the man as he shifts his weight on the other leg. Charles's scrutinising gaze locks on the crevices and crannies of the helmet lit by the moon's surreal glow. He's exhausted from looking at the nonsensical attire the man has donned. It threads no correlation with the man who had at one point, ceased his life-long will to kill the race he deemed inferior, simply to hold his injured friend in his arms and plead for him to stay in his life. 

 It seems like his reply comes the whole year later.   

"No, I take it off." 

Charles can't stop himself from swallowing harshly; like he's trying to wholly consume a brick-sized capsule of his anxiety. The thought may disturb him forever - Erik's detached mind is bare for some length during the night. _Bare_. Uncovered. Like before. 

He opens his mouth to speak, though only a questioning noise comes out into the air. He's not sure of how he's supposed to phrase his aghast fury over his own incompetence. How could he not have sensed the man's opened mind, considering the bond that once was? 

He has to assume his own face displays his befuddlement, because Erik takes his cue to speak.

"My room's voided from telepathic manipulation." 

The velvety rasp of his voice has dwindled away. After all, he no longer wants to provoke him, Charles has to remind himself. They're no longer enamoured lovers who surreptitiously rendezvous in dark corners to steal a taste of wet lips and a feel of silk skin. 

God knows what they are. And God knows why he's here, at this time, with such an impassive expression on his face. Like their meeting hasn't phased him at all, like Charles has never been of any importance. Is that it? Was Charles never the man he thought he was in Erik's eyes? Or is that damned helmet preventing his facial expressions from being read, too? 

"And yet I've heard my -- _replacement_ , shall we say? Is also a telepath." 

Erik's stoic expression hardens; mouth tensing curtly. 

"Replacement? Charles, she's far from it."

"She's a telepath, I'm a telepath. Substitute - is that better?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Charles. There was always a place for you." Charles has to reassure himself that the glint of hope in his green-grey eyes isn't imagined. "There still is."

Charles scoffs, rolling his eyes to look back at the mansion. _This_ is his place. And if he can't convey it mentally, then at least the look in his eyes should tell Erik that this is also where his place should be. 

"Why are you here, Erik?" Charles asks flatly, teeth chattering a little from the cold. He turns to look at the deciduous trees that stand droopily with a scarcity of leaves; devoid of vibrant colour and smooth textures. 

He looks at Erik. 

"I... would like to talk to you, Charles."

He warily takes a step closer, boots sliding against concrete like the sound of the wind. Then he lopes further, until the gap between them is closed and he's towering over Charles in his chair. He looks down at the paraplegic's legs in misery, as though they're the relics that depict every portion of their tragedy.

Charles looks at Erik's legs.

He doesn't want Erik's pity. His legs won't suddenly mobilize if Erik looks sullenly at them the way he is, just like how Charles can't make Erik change his intentions and take him back into the mansion; back into his embrace.

Charles follows the gaze that’s settled wistfully at inert knees. Charles moves his hands to clasp them together on his lap; _look Erik - these can move_. But his gaze doesn't shift.

The metal-bender gracefully collapses on his knees, the eyes cast low now sweeping up to meet Charles at his eye-level.

Then a low voice grinds out,

“You remember Magda, don’t you?”

Of course.

Of course Charles remembers Magda.

He can recall a glimpse of her in Erik’s mind; the memory of her actions still scalding like they’re yesterday’s pain. His mind supplies him with a fallible image of an olive skinned woman with short ringlets of dark hair framing her round face. She looks horrified, her hand slowly coming up to cup the mouth that’s ajar. There are scenes of an onslaught crystalline clear in the reflection her eyes show. 

Charles’s eyes have blinked shut. He opens them to look at the undulations of dust speckles as they swirl with the force of the wind.

“Yes.” His voice is gravelly. He clears his throat - though he should’ve perhaps done so earlier.  

Erik sits back on his legs, as though trying to recapture Charles’s attention. He doesn’t know he’s competing with small particles of dust.

At that thought, Charles gives Erik the liberty of receiving his despondent stare.

“Yes,” Erik repeats. “I had been so preoccupied for so long that it barely crossed my mind to find her, reconcile with her. Every time I contemplated it, I was reminded of her _hatred_ of me. The _urge_ to never see me again, the crippling _desperation_ to flee from my presence.” Now he’s gesticulating wildly with every stressed word. He’s looking down at the ground, scornfully. Miserable. Like the memory alone forces him to relive every anguished moment.

Charles fears that Erik’s account has brought about a maelstrom of remorseful nostalgia he can’t save him from. He tries to disregard the despair on his face - after all, he can’t feel it nudging in his mind - by prompting him to continue with what he had essentially woken Charles in the cruel hours of midnight for.

“Erik? What happened to her?”

Charles can’t decide if he’s relieved for the way Erik’s face has slowly morphed back into impassiveness.

 

“Magda has birthed my children, Charles.”

 

:::

 

Erik was once Charles’s lover. The Summer sun would rise in the sky, the birds would chime in the air, and Erik would sink in his love for Charles. 

Charles would swim in it, of course; bathe in it, coming up afloat.

Erik had once cried into Charles’s lap until only the telepath could mollify his mind with pleasantries and placating silence.

How could he have known that a polite smile would have sufficed?

Erik was so ashamed with the affection he was openly at the receiving end of. He had breezed away, tucking himself right back into the blankets of bleakness.

He’d still stare at the expanse of his neck when Charles would down his drink opposite him.

They’d bicker inexorably about their ideologies. It kept Erik’s ulterior thoughts rightly supressed. He relished the moments he could verbally defame Charles’s ridiculous claims.

He hated the way his wine-wet lips became a vision he relished much, much more.

When Charles was offended by Erik’s words, it was like popping a bubble with a needle. You loved seeing the bubble in all its glory, with the roundness of a barrel and the prominence of a jewel. You gained inexplicable pleasure out of seeing it vanish. Better you than anyone else to do it.

It would eventually have to fade, anyway. It can’t cope with its surroundings. It’s too magnificent for its surroundings.

A wounded Charles always equated to his detachment from Erik’s mind at night.

 

It worked well for Erik’s shameful libido.

 

Sometimes hurting Charles meant getting his own way.

 

:::

 

It had been the mild warmth of Spring kissing their skin when they had delved into discussions of children.

 

“More? You don’t think four is enough?” incredulity bled from Erik’s tone. “Honestly, Charles. You can’t really be serious.”

 

“I’m perfectly serious.” And he had said so whilst having to dodge a football as it flung in the direction of his knees. He composed himself in an instant, simply tugging on his shirt cuffs. Fingers had ascended to his temple, and just so, Erik could proficiently determine by his expression alone, that somebody was being telepathically rebuked. “I envision,” Charles’s voice was now steady and formal, as though he was reeling a well meditated speech, “and I anticipate, an entire school.”

Erik had scoffed.

“A whole school? That’s a tiring vision.” He craned his neck to look up at the mansion, the sun sprouting its rays to obscure the scenery.

“A rewarding one, I imagine.”

 _I envision. I anticipate. I imagine._ Charles’s dreams had dreams.

“This place should serve its purpose in someway. It was never home for me, but it was where I first discovered another person like me.” His smile was fond. “How wonderful would it be if others could do the very same? Find people like themselves. Intermingle and unite with them as opposed to differentiating themselves from everyone else. Establish a sense of community, seek solace whenever needed.”

Erik had wished that he could see what Charles did when he stared wistfully into the stretch of foliage, a smile so unmistakeably ruby red curled upon his lips.

“Well that’s definitely one way to fill a mansion.”

“Load it with children? Why of course,” Charles’s smile was sincere, never failing to reach his eyes.

"Your own, at some point?"

Erik didn't know if his question was meant to sound patronizing. But it did.

If he could have retracted it from the air, he would've; undoubtedly.

Charles's mouth had formed a straight line. A straight line the colour of tender grapefruit.

"Maybe," he said airily, turning back to look at the expanse of greenery before them. "It all depends, doesn't it?"

"On what?"

 

"Who I fall in love with."

 

:::

 

Three weeks later, Charles had lain on Erik's chest with a ruddy hue tinting his cheeks. He had leant into Erik, nose touching the shell of his ear, and whispered,

 

"It's you. I love you."

 

:::

 

Charles had once been Erik's lover.

 

:::

 

"That's wonderful, Erik."

 

Only he doesn't say that. He stills; he knows he's expressionless. He knows he looks deathly pale, and that he hasn't spoken or moved in the long moments that have passed since the German has talked. 

The wind does its part to fill the discernible silence between them. It can't, however, combat the tension and the impasse at which their conversation has reached.

Erik does his part. He continues.

"They are... healthy twins, Charles."

His eyes rake up to his face, staying there long enough to blink.

"There is little to be said about Magda. I haven't any news of her whereabouts."

Charles swallows. He should express concern, offer help of some sort - but he can't. He has one question to ask, one question that has been burning with the urge to be addressed.

“Are you happy?”

He can pinpoint the exact moment Erik stops breathing. His chest is inert, no longer rising and falling with each steady breath.

Only a long, rueful silence later does the older man speak.

“I am many things, right now,” each word is articulated with great care, sounded out with punctuating syllables. “One of them is lost.”

Charles stifles a mocking laugh. His nostrils flare a little nonetheless.

“Lost? This is Westchester, Erik, you’ve been—”

“You know what I mean,” he cuts. His eyelids fall above stony, frigid eyes and then open to reveal sorrowed ones. Charles can almost see the reflection of the moon in his eyes, superimposing the glints of green and grey. “I can’t – I can’t be a father.”

“But _now_ you must become one. There are _two_ young children in need of you to be one,” the words surge out before Charles has even had the chance to revisit them. He’s leaning forward in his chair, head tipping to meet Erik’s darkened eyes. “What worries you?"

 "Charles, Magda's not a mutant." The despondence in his voice is unmistakeable. 

"Yes... and?"

 "Charles - Charles what if the _children_ aren't mutants?"

He leans back, astonished. “Is that really all your mind revolves around? Your alleged superiority? Erik, human or not, they’re yours. They’re your blood.” 

"They could potentially go against everything I've ever believed."

Then Charles is blurting it out without hesitation. "Your mother. The mother you loved so dearly, Erik. She wasn't a mutant. But she was your blood, you were a part of her."

Charles knows this is the optimum segue for an argument over ideals to ensue. This time the scales could tip in his favour entirely, but now is most definitely not the time for Charles to be opportunistic.  

"The way you differed from her didn't stop her from bestowing love."

Charles knows he's treading on harsh territory. He's familiar with just how sensitive a topic this is, but somehow, it's the ideal way for Erik to understand. Surely - it _has_ to be - 

But the way Erik is recoiling, hunching over himself and bleeding dejection, makes Charles's fingers tremble in nervousness. 

"Oh, Erik... I'm sorry-"

"No. Charles, no. Don't be. What you're saying is... right."

And that stuns Charles for an eternity of incredulity-laden shock. He for once, having been deemed  _correct,_ has nothing to say in response. 

The whole encounter lacks verisimilitude, as real as it is - and perhaps that's why Charles feels robbed of words and ways to start sentences he can finish. 

A gloved hand covers his and maybe -

 

Maybe, this isn't real after all. 

 

But it is. 

 

It is, because a thumb creates languid strokes over the soft flesh of his palm. It's a slow, leisurely gesture that almost looks like a soothing balm is being rubbed into his hand. Charles feels his skin prickle in a good way. Where there are breezes of sharp winds wafting against exposed skin, his one hand is sheathed by the warmth of synthetic leather. Then, with a definitive tap, the hand withdraws.

The gusts that meet his skin now make him shiver, as does the resignation evading from Erik's cold voice.

"I should go."

His eyes follow Erik as he stands to his full height. Sinewy shoulders spread to their expanse, and Charles has to duck his head when he finds he's thinking too avidly about the way they flexed under his hands. 

And in that moment, as the urge to reminisce settles deep enough to bruise, Charles shrugs free of the tight clamp his pride maintans. 

"Erik? I want you to know that however your children are genetically determined - they are more than welcome to come here whenever they please." 

The way Erik's mouth parts, jaw unclenching, seems to elevate Charles. It's the first time tonight Charles has seen a look of pity or vacancy vanish from beneath the helmet; traceless. 

What he sees instead is unadultered compassion.

He keeps the memory close enough to last a lifetime, _knowing_ he'll need it for a lifetime. And hoping he'll see it again.

"Good night," _my enemy, my friend_.  

"Yes, Charles. You have made it so."

 

* * *

 

_"Magneto is closer to me than my own brother. We're like bookends of the same soul."_

_\--_ Charles Xavier, Excalibur

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Seasons Greetings! Have a wonderful New Year, readers.
> 
> (Title is taken from the following: [http://tinyurl.com/b9aecah] song. Please note that the link sends you to a super awesome Cherik fan vid.)


End file.
